Dracula Gets Animated For Halloween

Cartoon Network is presenting a new Halloween special take on the Santa versus Halloween meme with the animated special Dear Dracula. Based on writer Joshua Williamson and artist Vicente Navarrete’s 2008 graphic novel “Dear Dracula”, the special will air October 16th on Cartoon Network.

For years, children the world over make it a habit to write to Santa Claus with letters asking for all sorts of toys for Christmas. Sam decides to write to Dracula, asking for a visit to make Halloween a spookier holiday.

The special is produced by Kickstart Productions. There are some big name stars voicing characters, including Ray Liotta as Dracula, Nathan Gamble as Sam, and Emilio Estevez as Renfield. The film was written by Brad Birch and directed by Chad Van De Keere.

Writer Joshua Williamson says Kickstart stayed true to their original design concepts. “They took our designs and ran with them,” he said in an interview with Comic Book Resources published yesterday. “A lot of design changes were made to take it into the world of CG because not everything translated well, but like I said earlier, I wish it had stayed 2D. But that’s mostly just a personal opinion. You can see a lot of the same charm in the cartoon that Vinny put into the original art.”

The film has already been released direct-to-video exclusively at Wal-Mart on DVD. Cartoon Network will air the 61-minute CG animated movie as part of their “Spooky Specials” Halloween programming on October 16 at 7pm.

The original graphic novel was co-published by Image Comics and Shadowline.